One-man play tells the story of a man who resisted the internment of Japanese-Americans

Thursday

Nov 30, 2017 at 9:29 AMNov 30, 2017 at 9:31 AM

By Jody Feinberg/The Patriot Ledger

BOSTON - When the U.S. government interned Japanese-Americans during World War II, a Japanese college student resisted the violation of his constitutional rights.

Gordon Hirabayashi was one of only three people to defy the order, and this largely unknown story gets deserved attention in the one-man play “Hold These Truths,” which opens Friday at The Lyric Stage in Boston and runs through Dec. 31.

“It’s the case for a lot of historical figures in the Asian-American community that they’re not widely known,” said Michael Hisamoto, who stars as Hirabayashi. “He’s a testament to being brave and standing up for your principles even though you fear what you might lose.”

Although Hisamoto is a fifth-generation Japanese-American, he had never heard about Hirabayashi until he discovered the 2007 play by Jeanne Sakato five years ago, when its name was changed from “Dawn’s Light: The Journey of Gordon Hirabayashi.”

In the play, a middle-aged Hirabayashi looks back on his defiance as a college student in Seattle in 1942. His protest rested on the fact that the U.S. government first imposed a curfew, then internment on Japanese-American citizens without due process.

Hirabayashi defied the curfew and later went to prison – first in 1942 for refusing to comply with the internment order, and then for refusing to sign an allegiance order.

After losing a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1943, he was exonerated in 1987. Evidence had emerged that the government admitted that it had no national security reason to intern people of Japanese ancestry who were American citizens.

In May 2012, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Hirabayashi – who became a professor of sociology – the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Along with Hirabayashi, Hisamoto portrays 38 characters – his parents, college friends, lawyers, judges and bystanders. The play, directed by Brookline native Benny Sato Ambush, also includes an unusual adaptation of a traditional Japanese theatrical feature called kuragos – stage hands dressed in black who are nearly invisible as they move the set. In this instance, three kuragos at a time express Hirabayashi’s experience through movement.

“We’re breaking the rules of the tradition to create something more interesting,” said Hisamoto, 24, who has lived in Boston since he studied theater at Boston University.

What makes Hirabayashi seem even braver is that he waged his battle with no support from his family or the Japanese-American community. He received support only from his wife and the lawyers who took on his case pro bono. At the time, the dominant belief in Japanese culture was “the nail that sticks out is the one who gets hit,” Hisamoto said.

“He suffered largely alone and quietly, almost like a martyr, because his community was against him,” he said. “People felt that if they conformed, it would blow over. They felt he was putting them in danger and making them seem like traitors.”

Hisamoto said one of the most compelling issues raised by the play is what it means to be a bystander.

“The others know he is doing something courageous, but they are fearful and lack the conviction to support him,” Hisamoto said. “Why did he have to go through his journey pretty much alone? I hope the audience thinks about whether bystanders are complicit in their silence.”

He also said he hopes to inspire audience members to follow their own convictions, regardless of the difficulties, and to remain optimistic that constitutional rights will prevail over attempts to restrict them.

“He is overwhelmingly an optimistic guy,” Hisamoto said of Hirabayashi. “He has some dark periods, but he insists the world is fundamentally good.”